


i know what’s best for me (but i want you instead)

by zhuzhubi



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Codependency, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, F/M, Hospitals, Just angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Overdosing, Substance Abuse, Toxic Relationship, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, no happy ending type of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28060995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhubi/pseuds/zhuzhubi
Summary: you know that this relationship is only hurting the both of you, but loving spencer just feels too good for you to let go(or, spencer x reader are stuck in a toxic relationship)
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	i know what’s best for me (but i want you instead)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by 'over and over' by three days grace

_“I’m trying, you know,” he says, rocking a little in his seat on the couch and refusing to look you in the eye, “I really am. I really…I tried not to, you know that right? You know that I don’t…I mean, I don’t **like** being like this. I want to stop **so badly** , you know I do! But it’s just…it’s just so **fucking** hard. A-and it doesn’t help when you don’t answer my calls, you know? I tried to call you, but…I dunno. You were still in your meeting, I guess - which…I-I get it. I mean it’s been so long at this point, you have to get on with your life, you can’t keep spending all your time sitting at home keeping an eye on me, **babysitting** Spencer the -”  
_

_“Spencer **stop** ,” you interrupt him, “Don’t say that about yourself. Your illness isn’t your fault. I should’ve picked up - you’re so much more important to me than some…some work meeting. I won’t let this happen again, okay baby? I love you, I’ll always be here for you.”_

_He sighs and leans into you, tucking his face into the crook of your neck. His breath is shaky against your skin as he nods, his tears are wet against the collar of your shirt. You wrap your arms around him just like you always do, pressing kisses into the crown of his head and whispering sweet nothings as he sobs and clings to you. He’s sweaty and he smells a little bit, but **oh** how you love the way he feels against you. The warmth of his body heat, the way he fits perfectly into your arms. The rise and fall of his chest under your palms with every shuddering inhale._

_You close your eyes and soak in the feeling, thinking **I love him, I would do anything for him.** **I would give up anything for him** as you thread your fingers through his sweaty curls. You feel tears leak out of your own eyes, leaving salty residue behind as your breath starts to hitch with barely contained sobs. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Spencer is the one who’s hurting right now, he needs your comfort and affection - what kind of a person would you be to not give it to him?_

_Neither of you mention the handful of newly-procured sterile syringes on the table, nor the blue rubber tourniquet laying discarded on the floor. You pretend you don’t see the dark bruise of a blown vein trailing up his left arm. You don’t think about how he doesn’t even try to hide it from you anymore._

_In the morning both of you will pretend this never happened, like it isn’t just a matter of time before you’re sitting here on this couch comforting your boyfriend through relapse number **I don’t even know anymore.** You pretend because you love him, because you could never abandon him. Because you could never let him go._

…

You don’t remember why you were looking through his things. Maybe you’d mixed up the laundry, or maybe you just had one of those gut feelings like people sometimes do. The why doesn’t matter in the end, all that matters is what you found.

It happens like this: you’re going through Spencer’s clothing and you find something you wish you hadn’t, something he promised he’d sworn off a long time ago. You reach your hands into the drawer and hear the clinking of glass, see the clear liquid rocking back and forth after being disturbed.

There are two vials labeled hydromorphone, both somewhat poorly hidden under Spencer’s stacks of folded underwear. Your first instinct is to give him the benefit of the doubt, to think _maybe he just kept them as a reminder, maybe it’s not what I think it is._ But only one of them is full, and you _know._

You freeze where you stand, scarcely breathing as you stare down at the pair of tiny things cradled in the palm of your hand. You’re not sure what to do, didn’t think you’d ever really have to deal with this. Spencer was clean for…for years before he even met you, barely even mentioned his past with substance abuse after the one time he told you just because _I think you deserve to know what you’re getting into._ Can you really be blamed for brushing it off? For not taking him entirely seriously, for not thinking it would ever be an issue?

You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t notice the front door click open or footsteps padding down the hall. You don’t notice until Spencer’s right behind you, his soft voice echoing, “(y/n)?”

You gasp, whirling around to face him and instinctively closing your hand. The two vials clink together and you wince at the sound, swallowing nervously and trying desperately to think of something, of anything to say. He furrows his brow and tilts his head to the side in confusion, glancing down at your clenched hand and then to the open drawer behind you -

Spencer’s eyes widen in alarm - just like that, all hope of a misunderstanding is gone. All you can do is stare at him as he gulps and steps closer to you, opening and closing his mouth a few times before settling on, “(y/n), I -”

“Take off your shirt,” you interrupt him, startling yourself with the demand, “Right now, take it off. Please.”

“U-um,” he stutters, “I, um, I don’t…I don’t see why that’s necessary -”

Anger floods through you all of the sudden - anger that he kept this from you, anger that he’s trying to lie about it, anger that he’s trying to cover it up. You open your hand and shove the contents in his face, watching him flinch as you snarl, “Is this why you won’t take your shirt off anymore when we have sex, Spencer? Drugs!? You could’ve talked to me, you know - _literally anything_ would have been better than sneaking around behind my back and getting _high_ -”

“It’s not like that!” he shouts, crossing his arms like a petulant child and shaking his head at the wall, “It’s…it’s not something you deal with, you wouldn’t understand -”

“Then fucking explain it to me, Spencer!” you seethe, throwing the vials to the floor in your frustration. He drops to his knees without a second thought, scrambling to collect them and letting out this horrible distressed _noise_ as one rolls under the bed and he can’t get to it. You grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him back to his feet before he can even think about crawling underneath, damn-near sobbing as you try to make him listen to you, _“Explain it to me!”_

“I _can’t!”_ he exclaims, startling you into silence as he drags his hands through his hair in an attempt to self-soothe, “I can’t explain it - I don’t…I don’t know why. I guess I thought that…that you wouldn’t want to deal with me. That if I talked to you about wanting drugs, you would realize that I’m just some…some fucked up _junkie_ who can’t stop thinking about getting high. I didn’t want you to see me like this, to see me…I don’t know, to see me _crawling on the floor_ because of a fix.”

You don’t know how to respond to that, you really don’t. So you just stand there gaping at him for a few long, uncomfortable minutes before sucking in a breath and stuttering out, “T-that’s not…Spencer, I love you. I don’t care that you’re an addict, I love _every part of you -”_

And then he’s angry again, scoffing with disbelief as he turns to pace around the room. “Do you?” he mutters, “Do you really? Because you _shouldn’t._ You haven’t seen me when I’m…when I’m really desperate. Because I…I-I’m not a good person when I’m using, (y/n). I’m selfish, I…I yell at my friends, at my _family._ I’ve shot up in the police station while on the job, do you know how dangerous that was? _Is?_ How many lives I’ve risked because I’m too selfish to stop -”

You lunge forward and kiss him because you know it’s the fastest way to shut him up, to get him to stop saying those horrible things about himself. He gasps into your mouth and you pull him closer, threading your fingers through his hair and drawing circles over his scalp. “(y/n),” he pants, his voice breathy and low, “S-should we be doing this?”

“Shut up,” you whisper back, kissing him again even though you know he’s right to question it. _You’re not selfish,_ you think as you drag him backwards onto the bed, _You’re not selfish, Spencer - I am._

You can already feel him hard through his pants as you start to unbutton his shirt, mumbling, “I love you, all of you,” into the hot skin of his neck as his breath mixes with yours. He tucks his arms into his sides when they’re first exposed, but you smile into his lips and reassure him, “Shhhh, don’t worry so much. There is _nothing_ in this world that could ever make me think less of you, nothing at all. Do you understand, Spencer?”

He hesitates, gasping as he feels your hands dip from his shoulders to his arms. And then he nods, hiding his face in your neck and mouthing _yes_ as you reach for the crooks of his arms. 

The marks are angry and red against his otherwise unblemished skin, they’re dotted between silvery faded scars. _There are so many of them,_ you think as you thumb over the bruises, _I wish you didn’t have to deal with this. I wish I could make it better for you._

And then you think about the heat of his body over yours, about the erection you can feel against your belly and the shaky breath that’s hot against your neck, about the rumble of his voice in his chest as he moans your name and bucks up into you. It hits you then that maybe you _can_ make it better for him, that if you can just show him how much you love him he won’t feel like he needs the drugs anymore.

(In the back of your brain, you know that this is a bad idea, that this is a temporary solution to a problem much bigger than you are. You just can’t seem to make yourself fight it, though - you don’t know why, but all of the sudden it just feels _too good_ to have somebody need you so much)

…

You’re sitting on the couch on a Friday night. The television is on but you’re not really paying attention to it. It’s almost midnight and Spencer’s still not home - you wish you could give him the benefit of the doubt, that you could tell yourself _oh you know how he is, I’m sure he just got caught up with work._ You close your eyes against the tears, mouth _it’s fine, he’s fine_ to yourself as if speaking the words will make them the truth. 

The truth is that you know exactly where Spencer is, where he’s snuck off to. You know that when he gets back, he’ll be cagey about his bag and defensive about his demeanor. That his pupils will be tiny, and that if you ask him about any of it he’ll only blow up at you. 

You hear the lock turn and the front door slide open - for a moment, you imagine how it used to feel when Spencer came home. How it used to feel when he came back from long cases and pulled you into his arms, kissing your cheeks and mumbling _god, I missed you so much._

That’s not how it is now - you turn and watch as Spencer sneaks in through the door, dazed and unsteady and not nearly as quiet as he thinks he is. You clear your throat and he looks up at the noise, his reaction a little delayed and his eyes a little unfocused. He just blinks at you at first, wavering where he stands before sighing and padding over to you.

You settle him against your chest, wrapping your arms around his belly and pressing your cheek into the crook of his neck. He shifts to bring his legs up onto the couch and he looks so small all of the sudden, he looks like the world could just swallow him up. He sucks in a few shaky breaths, blowing the air out once twice three times before clearing his throat, “I’m sor-”

“Don’t.”

“But -”

“No, Spencer,” you sigh, “I know you’re sorry, you’re _always_ sorry.”

He pushes himself up and whirls around as fast as he can in his incapacitated state, furrowing his brow as he chokes, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You just shake your head, looking down to the floor and letting your eyes follow the patterns in the carpet. “It’s just that -,” you start, cutting yourself off as you blink back tears.

“No, tell me,” he insists, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It’s like your frustration boils over all of the sudden, like you don’t have the energy to be nice anymore. “It means that you’re _always sorry,_ Spencer!” you shout, startling yourself with the sheer force of your words, “You’re always sorry, and you always promise that you’ll change, that you’ll ‘never do it again’ - but guess what? Guess what!? You! Never! Keep your promise! This is, what? The fifth or sixth time that you’ve tried and _failed_ to get clean? Be honest with me, are you even _trying!?_ Because from where I’m standing it really doesn’t look like you are.”

He just gapes at you in response, opening and closing his mouth as he tries to find the words. He looks like he’s about to cry and you immediately feel bad for him, feel bad about yelling at him. _Oh god,_ you think, _What have I done? It’s just the illness, it’s not his fault, how could I even_ think _about getting mad at him?_

And just like that, all of the anger drops out of you. “Oh, baby,” you whisper, reaching out for him and wincing when he flinches away, “Oh sweetheart, come here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just worry, you know? I just worry, that’s all.”

He looks away for a moment and twists his hands together, biting his lip as he tries to decide what to do. In the end, he leans into you, tucking himself back into your side where he fits so perfectly. You wrap your arms around him and squeeze him in the way you know he likes, humming a soft melody and shushing him until he’s calm. “I -,” he stutters into your chest, “I _am_ trying, I really am - I promise!”

“Oh Spencer,” you mumble, “I know you are, I know you’re trying really hard. I shouldn’t have yelled, I’m so sorry.”

You sit in silence for a while, counting his breaths just to reassure yourself that he’s still alive. You thread your fingers through his hair and press kisses to his forehead, mouthing sweet nothings when he whimpers, periodically rocking him back to calm. He falls asleep against you and you stay there with him for a while, relishing in his body heat and the tickle of his fluffy hair against your skin.

And then you untangle yourself from his lanky form, carefully settling him onto the couch and pulling the afghan over him. You take his bag to the bathroom and scour through it until you find his drugs, then dump out the vials and watch the clear liquid wash away down the drain. You retrieve the first aid kit from under the sink and take it back out into the living room, gently rolling up Spencer’s sleeves and applying antibiotic ointment to the fresh wounds, so accustomed to track marks at this point that they almost don’t bother you.

…

You get home from work one day and Spencer’s already sitting at the kitchen table, holding his head in his hands and pulling at the roots of his hair. You drop your things and go to him immediately, running your hands over his arms and down his back in the way you know he likes. Once the tension starts to melt out of him just a little, you ask, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

He shudders and covers his eyes, turning his head away from you and sucking a sharp breath. “Promise you won’t be mad,” he mumbles, the words just barely audible.

You bite your bottom lip, pulling up a chair to sit down next to him as you buy time to think of a response. You swallow nervously, brushing your hand over his cheek as you whisper, “Spencer…you know I can’t promise you that.”

“Promise me,” he begs, an edge building in his voice as he tightens his grip on his hair, “ _Please,_ (y/n).”

You reach quickly, bringing a hand up to his and tracing patterns over the veins until he loosens his grip. “O-Okay,” you stutter, “I promise. Now tell me - what happened?”

“I-I…,” he sucks in a deep breath, worrying at his bottom lip and averting his eyes, “I, um…I-I got let go today. Effective immediately.”

You’re stunned by the admission (although if his recent behavior is anything to go by, maybe you shouldn’t be). It takes you a few moments to process his words, and even then you’re sure you’ve misheard him, “…You what?”

“I got let go,” he snaps, turning to face you with anger in his eyes, “Fired. I got _fired_ , alright?”

“W-what!? I mean…Emily knows that you’re going through a rough time right now, but I don’t see why she would -”

“I failed a drug test, okay?” he shouts, letting the words hang in the air before dropping his gaze to the table and lowering his voice, “That’s what happened. I fucked up. He didn’t have a choice.”

You don’t know what to say at first, don’t know how to react to that - you’re so angry that the words keep catching in your throat. “You…you failed a drug test?” you shake your head at him with tension in your brow, “Spencer, you’re supposed to be clean - you _told me_ you were clean!”

“…You promised you wouldn’t be mad,” he whispers, shrinking into his chair.

“You promised not to _lie to me!_ I-I can’t believe this - that’s our one rule, _one rule!_ Were you even listening to me when we talked about it, _fuck -”_

“Don’t say that,” he growls, “I was listening. I _promise._ I just…it’s hard for me to talk about these things -”

“Yeah. I know,” you scoff, turning to face the wall because you don’t want to look at him, “It’s hard for you to talk about _everything.”_

“W-what the hell is that supposed to mean!?”

“Oh come on,” you roll your eyes, “You’ve gotta be one of the most emotionally unavailable people on the entire fucking planet, that’s what it’s supposed to mean! You know sometimes I feel like you don’t even love me - you don’t even fucking _trust_ me enough to talk to me -”

“Stop!” he yelps, his voice cracking with hurt, “I-I love you so much - don’t you _ever_ say that I don’t. I love you so much that I…that I feel like I’m _failing_ you, that’s why I didn’t tell you -”

And then your anger starts to fade away. You turn back to him, taking his hands in yours and leaning in so that he has no choice but to look at you, “Spencer, you’re not failing me. You could…I know that this is hard for you, much harder than it is for me. I just…I don’t know how to help you if you won’t talk to me. Maybe…I know you’re against the idea, but maybe -”

He stiffens immediately, pulling back even as you tighten your grip. “No,” he mutters, shaking his head - he already knows what you’re going to say next -

“- maybe it’s time to think about getting professional help -”

“No!” he shouts, tearing his hands out of yours and leaping to his feet. “How many times do I have to say _no_ before you stop suggesting that!?” he continues as he paces on the kitchen tile, “I’ve tried therapy before and I…i-it doesn’t help, okay? I can’t talk to a stranger like that, I just _can’t -”_

You jump to your feet behind him, holding up your hands as you follow him around the room. “I was thinking more along the lines of rehab -”

“What!?” he whirls around to face you, his face flushed red with anger, his eyes filled with betrayal at the mere suggestion, “ _No_ \- that’s even worse! I-I can’t do inpatient treatment, I just…I just can’t. My _mom -”_

You melt immediately at the mention of his mother - he’s just scared, how could he not be? “Oh, Spencer baby,” you soothe, slowly padding towards him, “It was just a suggestion, I’m not making you go - I’ll _never_ force you to go, alright? We’ll keep trying at home until things get better, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. I just want you to feel better. I just want you to feel like _yourself_ again.”

He sinks into your arms and starts to sob, clinging to you as snot and tears run down his face. You trace patterns over his back as his legs buckle beneath him, easing him down onto the floor and holding him in your arms as if you can protect him from the world, from all the hurt. 

“Sometimes I think that…that this is just who I am now,” he whispers after he’s been calm for a while, the words scarcely more than vibrations against your shirt as he hides away in your arms. 

You wish you could argue, that you could tell him _that’s not true, sweetheart. I know things are hard right now, but they’ll start to get better soon. I promise._ But the truth is that you’re not so sure yourself anymore.

…

You’re not surprised when you wake up one night to find Spencer unconscious in the living room. Horrified, yes, but not surprised. You hate that you’ve read up on what to do, that as soon as you’ve got 911 on the phone you rush to his side and check his pulse, his airway. The operator on the other side of the line is dictating instructions to you, but to be honest they’re nothing more than a distraction. 

When the EMTs arrive, you’ve got Spencer in the recovery position and a finger on his pulse. His respiration rate has been steadily dropping and his lips are starting to turn blue - it’s the first time the fear of losing him has been more than just a hypothetical. 

It’s scary to see him get strapped to a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance, to see the EMTs inject him with Naloxone and stick a tube down his throat. And you’re scared, you are, but you’re almost numb to it - it’s like you’ve been waiting for this to happen, and you’re not sure how to react now that it actually has. 

The ambulance speeds down the road sirens on as a woman in a blue uniform squeezes a bag to breathe for the thin man on the stretcher in front of you. It only takes a few long minutes before the Naloxone finally starts taking effect and Spencer wakes back up, gagging against the tube and struggling against the straps restraining him as his body tells him to _pull it out_. The EMT shushes him, talks to him gently as she carefully takes it out, leaving him hacking up spit and crying out for help.

She keeps on talking to him, saying, “You’re in an ambulance Mr. Reid, you’re in an ambulance,” as he continues to thrash around.

“No,” he croaks, “Let me out, I wanna go home - take me back home!”

They continue like that, back and forth and back and forth all the way to the hospital. You don’t say anything the whole way, just sit there frozen as Spencer argues with the woman who just saved his life. 

He’s just as combative at the hospital, snarls at the doctors and nurses when they try to hook him up to an IV or draw his bloods. He’s viscous, the kind of viscous he used to save for the unsubs and doesn’t have that kind of outlet anymore. “This is a waste of time,” he snaps, “I’m fine - (y/n), tell them! I’m fine, I want to go home.”

To be honest, you agree with the nurses who want to keep him for a psych eval. But Spencer…Spencer wants to go home. He wants _you_ to take him home. And so you don’t even try to argue with him, just reassure the nurses that you’ll keep a closer eye on him, (falsely) reassure them that he’s already getting help. And maybe it’s just because they aren’t allowed to keep pressing, to ask too many questions, but you can tell that they want him off their ward.

Spencer signs the discharge papers after having been in the ER for just over an hour, and then the two of you walk out the door.

… 

Spencer won’t look at you the whole way home from the hospital, just stares angrily out of the window on the Metro and shoves his hands under his armpits in a feeble attempt to hide the tremors. To be honest you don’t know what to say to him. He promised he’d never let it get this far, that he’d never accidentally take too much, that he’s just _too smart_ for that. 

He’s sweaty and trembling by the time you get back to the apartment, but he still musters up the strength to practically run inside. You follow behind him in silence, watching him fumble with the lock and waver on unsteady legs. He lets out a cry of frustration - you take the keys from him and unlock the door without a word, sighing when he pushes past you as if you’re just an obstacle.

He grabs his messenger bag and bolts for the bathroom, slamming the door behind him before you even have a change to shout his name. You know what he’s doing, you’d be a fool not to. You know that the Narcan kickstarted withdrawal, that his body is already screaming for more. 

You pad up to the closed door, pressing your forehead to the barrier and listening to the cacophony of noise coming from inside. You hear Spencer’s desperate whimpers, the clink of glass on the countertop. He lets out a sob and you imagine him trying to work with shaking hands, struggling to pull the tourniquet tight around his arm, to flood his body with more of the substance that almost killed him less than two hours ago. 

His sigh of relief comes soon enough, followed by the sound of him sinking to the tile floor. You press your ear to the door and listen to the sound of him breathing, mentally preparing yourself to kick it down if it stops. You finger over the cell phone in your pocket and wonder if the same EMTs would come, if they would look at him in pity and you in disgust - they don’t understand, though, just how hard it is to stop him. 

By the time he reemerges, your body is stiff from holding the same position for so long. You almost fall over when he pushes the door open and collapses into you, mumbling, “‘m sorry, (y/n), ‘m so sorry I couldn’t be stronger.”

You close your eyes and press a kiss to the crown of his head, choking back tears as you try not to think about how close he is to being gone. You lead him to the bed and tuck him under the covers, climbing in beside him and letting him curl up against your front. You brush your hands through his curls, greasy from too many days without a shower and brittle from daily hits instead of daily meals. 

There’s some part of you, some large part of you that knows that none of this is doing either of you any good. You _know_ that he needs treatment, that he needs someone who will prompt him to get better instead of comforting him for being sick. You _know_ that giving him money for high end drugs because he’d turn to street heroin otherwise isn’t as helpful as you’d like to believe it is. You _know_ that you’re letting him continue to get sicker, that the two of you are dragging each other down with every _Never again_ and _I promise_ and…and _I love you -_

“I love you,” Spencer mumbles as he falls asleep, aided by a combination of exhaustion and drugs. And it feels _so good_ to hear him say that, it feels _so good_ even though you’re not sure if it’s him or the addiction anymore. 

“I love you too,” you mumble back - you mean it, you really do. 

_You said you were selfish once,_ you think as you drift off behind him, _but that’s not true. I’m the selfish one, because I **know** that I’m destroying you, but I still can’t bear to let you go._


End file.
